December 07, 2015

President Barak Obama took another step down the path of history recent when he signed a bill that would fund America's roads, bridges and mass-transit systems and revive the charter of the U.S. Export-Import Bank over the objections of conservative Republicans.

The Senate where signs of wisdom still exist, voted 83 to 16 to approve the $305 billion legislation hours after the bill cleared the House of Representatives by a margin of 359 to 65, thanks to the election year. As the first long-term U.S. highway bill in a decade, the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act, represents a rare victory for bipartisanship in Congress.

"It proves to the American people that we can get things done," said House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania Republican. The legislation returns the EXIM Bank to operation over conservative opposition that allowed its charter to expire on June 30. The agency, which helps U.S. companies with foreign competitors, would have its charter renewed through Sept. 30, 2019, but with a lower lending limit and other reforms.

Boeing Co, EXIM's biggest beneficiary, and General Electric Co have warned that the loss of agency support could cause them to move manufacturing jobs out of the United States. Ethiopian Airlines [ETHA.UL] also expressed concern in September about its ability to take delivery on Boeing jets without EXIM support.

The new act drew accolades from Republicans for providing $280 billion in funding for infrastructure projects from the Highway Trust Fund without increasing the federal gasoline tax.

Democrats cautioned that the modest spending increases would not be enough to fully address the nation's crumbling roads, bridges and rail systems. To avoid higher taxes, the bill's authors opted for a series of controversial measures including a transfer from the Federal Reserve's surplus funds, an increase in customs fees and a requirement for the Internal Revenue Service to use private tax collection agencies.

The measures would leave the Highway Trust Fund with $10 billion at the end of 2020, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. A number of add-on provisions in the legislation were the subject of intensive lobbying by the transportation industry and safety advocates.

November 11, 2015

Panama Canal Traffic Information
By: AJOT | Nov 10 2015 at 12:44 PM | Ports & Terminals
Panama City, Panama - The Panama Canal continues to experience unseasonably high demand and is taking several steps to expedite traffic, decrease Canal Waters Time (CWT) and reduce the current backlog of vessels.
The Canal has postponed non-critical maintenance work at the locks, modified its booking system, canceled draft restrictions, and assigned additional crews to operate the tugs, locomotives and locks.
The greater demand is attributed, in part, to traffic diverted from the U.S. West Coast and a higher-than-normal volume of ships that require additional security measures, such as tankers and gas carriers. The Canal has also seen a higher percentage of large and deep-draft vessels, which also affects CWT.
Weather has also slowed traffic. In the month of October alone, fog delayed 107 vessels. Drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon reduced water levels in Gatun Lake, increasing lockage process time.
“We have taken, and will continue to implement, measures to speed traffic and reduce wait times,” said Panama Canal Administrator/CEO Jorge L. Quijano. “Of note, this past year, the Canal saw record cargo tonnage and greatly advanced the Canal expansion, which is 94 percent complete and will double our cargo capacity.”
To further expedite the traffic, the Panama Canal will temporarily suspend booking slots for regulars available in the third period, for vessels less than 300 feet in length and for Just-In-Time slots for regulars. These measures will take effect November 12, 2015.
“We are working hard to improve the situation and are making steady progress, but it is slow,” said Quijano. “And we will do more to address the issue as quickly as possible for our valued customers.”
The Panama Canal will continue to monitor the situation, implement measures to speed traffic, and communicate updates as more information is made available.

July 09, 2015

Attica Holdings S.A., a member of Marfin Investment Group (MIG), announced that the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), granted Attica approval to operate through its wholly owned US subsidiary, Superfast Ferries(USA) LLC, a marine route between US and Cuba, in connection with travel or transportation of persons, baggage or cargo between the United States and Cuba. Attica is in the process of applying for appropriate regulatory and other approvals from the Cuban government. Attica Group’s financial and operational success in Greece and the broader South European region has provided the platform for this expansion initiative.

The US-Cuba route enables Attica Group to leverage its long industry experience operating in developed and competitive markets and unique know-how in maritime transport, in the fast growing US-Cuban market.Attica’s fleet of 13 modern and technologically advanced vessels include a number of vessels ideally fit for the US-Cuba route. Two of these vessels have initially been identified for this service, each with carrying capacities of about 1,700 passengers, 700 berths and 2,000 lane meters garage, capable of carrying about 570 cars.

All ferries are fully equipped with restaurants, duty free shops, swimming pool, bars, playroom and other family oriented activities. Spiros Paschalis, CEO of Attica Group, stated, “We are pleased to receive the US government approval and are excited to be able to offer service on the historically important US-Cuba marine route. The US license confirms the reliability, trust and superior quality for which Attica Group’s fleet has been internationally renowned for. Our proposed ferry service would provide daily non-stop transportation between the Port of Miami in Florida and the Port of Havana in Cuba, a distance of 230 miles, in less than 10 hours, in a relaxed and casual atmosphere with our usual superior service standards.”

Spiros Paschalis continued, “Opening up the U.S.-Cuba route is an important step in rebuilding relations between the two countries. We hope to be able to provide travelers an opportunity to experience the immense beauty and rich cultural heritage of Cuba. We are proud to be chosen as trusted operators to carry passengers and cargo back and forth to an exciting new destination.”

June 04, 2015

A crippling virus has slipped its bonds in Africa and Asia and is invading whole new continents faster than people canlearn to pronounce its name. In one decade, chikungunya (chihk-uhn-GUHN-yuh) fever has gone from an obscure tropical ailment to an international threat, causing more than 3 million infections worldwide. The virus has established itself in Latin America and may now have the wherewithal to inflict its particular brand of misery in cooler climates.

Chikungunya rarely kills its victims, but it can bring a world of hurt. It comes on like the flu — fever, chills, headache, aching joints — and typically lingers for a week. Many patients later develop severe joint pain that can recur for months or years. In the Makonde language of East Africa, where the virus was first identified in 1952, chikungunya means “to walk bent over” or “to become contorted,” a reference to the stooped posture of many sufferers.

Going places

Chikungunya virus has broadly expanded its tropical range and made fleeting inroads into temperate zones. The virus moves via infected travelers who get bit by a mosquito —Aedes aegyptiorAedes albopictus— which then passes the virus to its next victim, sparking an outbreak in a new region. Map shows most major outbreaks since 1952. Mosquito ranges are approximations and hint at potentially vulnerable areas.

Just how chikungunya went global in 10 years is a story of international travel, viral mutations and an accomplice with wings. Historical accounts suggest that the mosquito-borne virus has ventured from its natural home in Africa several times, even hitting North America in the 1820s. But apart from settling into Southeast Asia in the late 1950s, other sorties from Africa have fizzled.

Not this time. In 2005, chikungunya departed Kenya, hit several islands in the Indian Ocean and spread like a brush fire through India and Southeast Asia, where it lingers today. In 2013, the strain of chikungunya that had been ensconced in Asia since the 1950s found its way to the Caribbean and even nicked Florida in 2014.

It’s not unprecedented for a tropical disease to reach other warm regions. But one strain of the chikungunya virus has found a way to survive in mosquitoes that live in temperate zones, leading to recent forays into Italy and France. North America, China and Europe are now fair game.

That means chikungunya could be coming to a mosquito near you. The virus has not established long-term roots in temperate zones, and no one knows whether it has the chops to do so. But Stephen Higgs, a parasitologist and chikungunya expert at KansasStateUniversity in Manhattan, says U.S. outbreaks are a real possibility.

Crossing the pond

The sleepy island of Réunion sits isolated in the Indian Ocean, far from major shipping lanes. It would seem like an ideal place to dodge global health problems.

But in 2005 and 2006, the French territory became a jumping-off point for the epidemic of chikungunya that sprang from Kenya and still churns in Asia today. The scourge devastated Réunion, racking up 266,000 cases on an island of roughly 800,000 people. At the height of the outbreak, patients were streaming into clinics at a rate of 40,000 per week. The virus also blew through Madagascar, Comoros, Mauritius and Seychelles. When it made landfall in India in late 2005, chikungunya hit the jackpot, causing close to 1.4 million infections. From India it crossed Southeast Asia, spawning outbreaks in Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia and elsewhere.

This explosion of infections from a previously obscure virus stunned global health experts. India had a spotty history of chikungunya, but hadn’t had a case in 32 years. Réunion had never seen it before. Something had changed.

Story continues after interactive map

Western migration

Hot spots of chikungunya transmission have cropped up widely over the last 60 years, lately reaching the Western Hemisphere. The first U.S. outbreak affected a handful of people in Florida, but elsewhere, outbreaks have varied from hundreds to more than 1 million suspected cases.

Réunion seemed an odd stopover for chikungunya because the island had little or noAedes aegypti, the tropical mosquito that typically carries the virus around Africa and Asia. Researchers soon figured out that the African chikungunya that hit Réunion had mutated to thrive inside a new carrier, the Asian tiger mosquito,Aedes albopictus (SN: 6/29/13, p. 26). Réunion, like many parts of the world, has tiger mosquitoes.

Before the virus mutated, the tiger mosquito couldn’t effectively spread chikungunya. But the mutation has rendered the virus 100 times as adaptable to the tiger mosquito’s innards as it once was. Specifically, the virus underwent a single amino acid change in one of its glycoproteins, a carbohydrate-protein mix called E1, making virus replication much easier in the tiger mosquito. When the mosquito takes a blood meal from a person carrying mutated chikungunya, the pathogen proliferates rapidly in the insect’s midgut and travels to its saliva. As a result, the mosquito’s next bite is like a hypodermic needle loaded with virus. Other mutations found later seemed to help this virus adapt to the tiger mosquito, its new host.

DRILLING DOWN One strain of chikungunya virus has found a way to hitchhike in the Asian tiger mosquito (bottom), which is found in much of the eastern United States. In the tropics, the most common chikungunya carrier is the Aedes aegypti mosquito (top).

BOTH: JAMES GATHANY/CDC

The tiger mosquito offered chikungunya what amounted to frequent flier miles on a fleet of jets bound for cooler climes. Within a few years the virus showed up in Italy and France, ferried from person to person by black-and-white striped tiger mosquitoes. Italy reported about 200 infections in 2007.

That’s a modest number, but it established that chikungunya could successfully venture outside the tropics. “That was a game changer,” says Scott Weaver, a virologist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

Westward bound

A second surprise came in 2013 when chikungunya showed up on the sun-splashed Caribbeanisland of Saint Martin. A traveler — from the Far East according to genetic characteristics of the virus — apparently arrived in Saint Martin carrying the virus and was bitten by a local mosquito, which then spread it to other people, says Ann Powers, a molecular virologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Fort Collins, Colo. This launched the epidemic in the West.

“Our luck ran out,” Weaver says. In the ensuing year and a half, chikungunya established a foothold in the Americas that it may never relinquish. Florida had 11 cases in 2014 transmitted by local mosquitoes. The warm GulfCoast may be at risk since the tropicalAe. aegypti,which appears to be driving the epidemic, can live there, says Higgs.

The good news for now is that the chikungunya strain that hit the Caribbean and Florida isn’t carried by the much-despised tiger mosquito, he adds. That’s probably why the Caribbean infections haven’t penetrated North America beyond Florida. If chikungunya were to catch on in Europe or the eastern United States, it would arrive in a sick traveler but would need to be a strain already adapted to the tiger mosquito.

Meanwhile,Ae. aegyptiis spreading the Asian strain of chikungunya in Latin America and the Caribbean, with tens of thousands of cases confirmed and more than 1 million suspected. The epidemic has stretched to Brazil, which has reported hundreds of cases of person-to-mosquito-to-person spread.

Much of Brazil is home to both the tiger mosquito andAe. aegypti, and scientists are trying to determine which insect is spreading the virus there. Brazil has a second two-headed problem: It has cases of the Asian strain of chikungunya that swept the Caribbean as well as the African strain of chikungunya that spilled into the Indian Ocean and learned to ride the tiger mosquito. Researchers don’t know yet if the African strain has mutated in Brazil as it did in Réunion and parts east.

The three strains of chikungunya virus

West African strain

Spread by the mosquitoAedes aegypti

Largely confined to West Africa

Asian strain

Spread byAedes aegypti

Originated in Africa

Emerged in Southeast Asia in the 1950s, where it is endemic

Carried to the Caribbean in 2013 and now detected in Latin America

East/Central/South African strain

Spread byAedes aegyptiandAedes albopictus (Asian tiger mosquito)

Found widely in sub-Saharan Africa. After an outbreak in Kenya, one form of this strain moved offshore in 2005, mutating in Indian Ocean islands and later hitting India, Europe and Southeast Asia. Another East/Central/South African strain recently appeared in Brazil.

Source: David Morens and Anthony Fauci/NEJM2014

If the virus in Brazil morphs, the West could face a worst-case scenario, because Panama, Mexico and many other countries also harbor both mosquitoes. The risk posed by having a version of chikungunya in the West that has adapted to temperate-zone carriers keeps U.S. infectious disease experts up at night.

“It’s certainly something I worry about,” says Mark Heise, a virologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There is plenty of air traffic between Brazil and North America, he says, and the tiger mosquito’s ever-expanding range includes much of the United States east of the Mississippi River.

To become contorted

The best that can be said about a case of chikungunya is that it confers lifetime immunity. People rarely get it twice. Once is bad enough.

Ann Powers first witnessed people with chikungunya in Comoros in the Indian Ocean, which was hit about the same time Réunion was. “It was incredible to see people in that much pain,” she says. Powers interviewed some patients as they lay down because their ankles were so inflamed they couldn’t stand. “Shaking hands hurt them,” she says.

In a long-term study of 102 Réunion patients, 60 percent still reported joint pain three years after contracting chikungunya, a French teamreportedinPLOS Neglected Tropical Diseasesin 2013. In Italy, a one-year follow-up found nearly 67 percent of patients continued to have joint or muscle pain.

Why the virus goes after the joints is a mystery. Joints lack circulation, which might help the virus evade the immune system, Heise says.

The crippling joint symptoms can disable a whole community, says David Morens, a pediatric infectious disease physician at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md. “In Asia you see these really massive outbreaks where everybody gets sick at once. The whole town gets incapacitated. There are no taxicabs, no teachers.”

Pregnant women face special risks. Of 39 pregnant women in Réunion who had chikungunya fever around the time they were in labor, 19 had infected newborns. Ten of those infants developed serious complications, most with swelling of the brain. Four became disabled, a French research teamreportedinPLOS Medicinein 2008.

Treatment options are lacking. Aside from fever reducers and fluid replacement, the drug ribavirin shows some benefit. Antibodies from a recovered chikungunya patient might help an exposed person, but more testing is needed.

A2013 studyidentified antibodies in mice that can neutralize chikungunya virus and prevent the animals from getting ill. The antibodies even worked when injected after the mice were exposed to the virus, but not if the animals were already showing symptoms, says Heise, who co­authored the report, inPLOS Pathogens.

One of the problems with chikungunya is how little scientists know about it. In humans, the incubation period — time between exposure and first symptoms — is a guesstimate of one to 12 days. Lab tests show mosquitoes other thanAe. aegypti and Asian tiger are capable of harboring the virus, but whether they do so extensively in the wild isn’t known. Chikungunya has circulated in Africa for hundreds of years. The natural reservoirs are understood to be nonhuman primates and maybe rodents or other animals. When a mosquito bites an infected animal, that infected blood can be transmitted to humans with the next bite. But even though Asia has millions of monkeys and a history of outbreaks, no wild reservoirs have been identified there.

Outwitting a tricky virus

The molecular structure of chikungunya may provide more guidance — and a way to stop it. The virus relies on two glycoproteins, E1 and E2, to enter and infect a cell. It targets cells found in the blood, muscle, joints, lymph nodes and liver. Once inside a cell, E1, E2 and other viral proteins trigger a complex series of events that revs up manufacture of more virus. In the Réunion outbreak, the mutational change in the viral E1 glyco­protein put this process into overdrive in the Asian tiger mosquito, which spread it around the island, Higgs and his colleaguesreportedin 2007 inPLOS Pathogens.

These same proteins might be turned against the virus in a vaccine. One candidate vaccine that contains E1, E2 and other chikungunya proteins can elicit an immune reaction in monkeys and people. In 25 volunteers, a three-shot regimen of these proteins triggered neutralizing antibodies against chikungunya after two doses, NIAID vaccine researcher Julie Ledgerwood and colleaguesreportedDecember 6 in theLancet.

The protection remained for 44 weeks and probably lasts longer, she says. Vaccination helped turn the corner against yellow fever, another mosquito-borne virus. While yellow fever is deadlier, it has been suppressed by a long-lasting vaccine and now crops up only sporadically, usually in parts of Africa with low vaccination rates.

Another group is testing a chikungunya vaccine added to a measles shot. At the 2014 meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in New Orleans, Erich Tauber of Themis Bioscience GmbH in Vienna, reported that 42 healthy volunteers given the vaccine produced a strong immune response after the second shot of a three-shot regimen. And Weaver and his colleaguesreportedin theJournal of Infectious Diseasesin 2014 that a vaccine they developed showed strong protection against chikungunya in monkeys.

These vaccines are likely to protect against all three major strains of chikungunya, Ledgerwood says, including the morphed virus carried by the tiger mosquito. The greater challenge may be to find funding for testing and mass production. “We’re not short on ideas or tools,” Higgs says. “We’re short on investment.” Whether Big Pharma will go all in against an obscure virus with a funny name is anyone’s guess.

North versus south

How chikungunya will play out in cool climates is equally unclear. If the virus sparks new outbreaks in temperate regions, they will probably be summertime events, Powers says. Winter would douse the fire in North America. “You’re much more likely to have annual reintroduction of the virus” in warm months by travelers coming from endemic areas, she says, than year-round spread.

The use of bug spray and mosquito avoidance might — at least in developed countries — offset the growing reach of the Asian tiger mosquito and thwart chikungunya.

“My feeling is that people in countries like Italy and the United States are probably not exposed to mosquitoes enough,” Weaver says. “We might see small outbreaks but not major epidemics,” thanks mainly to air-conditioning and window screens. Whether those upgrades will be enough to stall the disease remains unknown.

Heise says a lack of these amenities in poor parts of cities could make them high-risk areas. The Asian tiger, he says, “is an incredibly aggressive mosquito.”

For people in the American tropics, the deal may be done. “I don’t see us, in these circumstances, driving chikungunya out of South and Central America,” Higgs says.

Some tropical countries with both kinds of mosquitoes lack good sanitation and have people housed in close urban quarters, a recipe for mosquito-borne disease transmission, Morens says. These conditions, often considered the price of finding work and getting ahead in life, are an ideal setting for disease spread. “Human progress creates opportunities for microbial progress to follow,” he says.

Others doubt that the disease will linger in the West. Historically, chikungunya (mistaken for dengue before the 1950s) may have emerged from Africa every 50 or 60 years, run rampant and burned itself out, says Scott Halstead, an infectious disease physician at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md. He was in Asia in the 1960s when the virus seemed to do just that, even though conditions were ideal for its continued spread. For this reason, Halstead doubts that the current global expansion is permanent.

Morens says that for the virus to stay in the West, it has to either adapt itself to humans or to wild animals. If it infects New World monkeys, as yellow fever did, chikungunya could linger under the radar and periodically jump to people. This is what chikungunya does in Africa. “The other possibility is more alarming,” he says. “The virus adapts itself to a new cycle, completely human-to-mosquito-to-human. Once in that cycle, it’s almost never going to go away.” This is how dengue fever established itself in the Americas, and it’s how chikungunya spreads in Asia.

Infection rates in Central America are down during the current dry season. But that’s about to change, Powers says. “Expect an increase in the number of cases in the near future.” The rainy season is right around the corner.

December 03, 2014

MIAMI — Vessel traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway near Bal Harbour, Florida is restricted following an incident involving a yacht and the Broad Causeway bridge.

Due to the incident, only the bridge's west leaf is able to open. Restrictions on vessel traffic limit movement of large vessels with a width of 40 feet or less as only one half of the bridge is operational.

Vessels with a height of less than 16 feet in height can transit as normal. Vessels with a height greater than 16 feet must have a width less than 40 feet to navigate through the waterway.

The bridge connects North Miami to Bay Harbor Islands and Bal Harbor.

The 161-foot yacht, Rockstar, was being towed by two tug boats Tuesday when the incident occurred. After the vessel was cleared from the involved portion of the bridge, the Rockstar was towed to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

All mariners are urged to exercise caution while transiting through the area, and to check weather before transiting offshore if necessary to detour the area.

May 26, 2014

(Reuters) - A painful mosquito-borne virus spreading quickly through the Caribbean is causing alarm in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic, where health officials are scrambling to respond to a surge of new patients.
Chikungunya, a virus more commonly found in Africa and Asia and transmitted by the same daytime-biting aedes aegypti mosquito that causes the more deadly dengue fever, was first detected in the eastern Caribbean five months ago.
Since then, it has jumped from island to island, sending thousands of patients to the hospital with painful joints, pounding headaches and spiking fevers.
"These mosquitoes know no borders," said Phyllis Kozarsky, a physician with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Seven deaths have been associated with the virus, but those people likely suffered from other health problems, health officials say. Chikungunya is normally not deadly and symptoms begin to dissipate within a week.
The Pan-American Health Organization reports more than 55,000 suspected and confirmed cases in the Caribbean. Officials say the number is likely much higher due to unreported cases.
Florida health officials confirmed at least three cases, though Reuters is aware of at least two other unreported cases.
In Haiti, where the virus was first detected early this month, the Health Ministry estimates 5,500 people have been sickened.
"My 22-year-old son is brave, but now he's crying like a kid. His arms, his neck, his back, every part of his body is in pain," said Marco Dorival in Port-au-Prince.
There is no vaccine or treatment that can cure the virus. Paracetamol, an over-the-counter painkiller, is used to treat high fevers.
The price of the medication has doubled in Haiti, leading the Ministry of Health to order 400,000 doses of acetaminophen, the ingredient in many non-prescription painkillers, be distributed around the country.
World Health Organization representatives in Haiti said chikungunya will continue to spread as the mosquitoes breed in standing water and open water containers used in many Haitian homes that lack running water.
"Thirty to 35 percent of the population will get sick," WHO representative Dr. Jean-Luc Poncelet said.
The Dominican Republic's Public Health Ministry suspects 14,000 cases. Both Haiti and the Dominican Republic said they would spray pesticides to kill mosquitoes and urged residents to destroy breeding grounds, such as pools of standing water.
"There was a period of time that I couldn't walk, and when I could walk again I was bent over," said Richard Barbour, a pastor at Advent Lutheran church in Boca Raton, Florida, who believes he and another church volunteer contracted the virus, after a trip to Haiti last week.
(Additional reporting by David Adams in Miami and David Beasley in Atlanta; Editing byGrant McCool)

March 10, 2014

Richard Branson, one of the world’s leading businessmen and investors, is reportedly in talks with Abu Dhabi entities to raise $1.7 billon to start a cruise line. The Virgin cruise ships would be aimed at younger people who do not cruise.

Branson told The National, “We are looking at a very different kind of cruise company. We’re trying to create the kind of cruise ship that would be attractive to the kind of people who would never consider a cruise at the moment.”

Branson is best known for starting Virgin Records in 1972, Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1994, Virgin Mobile in 1999, and the first of its kind in space tourism Virgin Galactic in 2004.

The $1.7 billion would be used to create a new cruise line starting with 2 cruise ships, one that will serve the popular Caribbean market and the other the Mediterranean. The cruise ships would be new vessels, not refurbished ones purchased from a current cruise line. Eventually, Brandon would like to expand into the Gulf market.

- See more at: http://cruisefever.net/0303-richard-branson-looking-into-starting-a-cruise-line/#sthash.Eqa57VLQ.dpuf

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/natl/flash-vis.html- check out this weather link

By Rick Eyerdam
In the next few days Norwegian Cruise Lines is going to board some brave passengers and crew aboard the brand new Norwegian Getaway in Germany and pretend the giant tub of a cruise ship is actually an ocean liner.
Bud Light has agreed to rent the still-being-built, 146,000-ton Norwegian Getaway and use it as a floating hotel for 4,000 weekend guests in New York across the pond.

According to Vanessa Lame, a Norwegian spokeswoman. It’s scheduled to arrive in New York Jan. 26. and that could be right in the middle of a full scale freezing gale when it waddles into port after being battered by giant Force 6 gale winds and 30 foot waves for some of the 10 day crossing.

Once they fix the damage then Anheuser-Busch teams will rush aboard and re-brand it as the Bud Light Floating Hotel, with Bud Light logos on towels, pillow cases, shampoo bottles and everywhere else.

The outside of the ship will carry the Bud Light signage, and some of the interior carpets will even be replaced with shades of Budweiser blue.

“We looked at hotels in New York and couldn’t find a property that met our ambitions,” said David Daniels, marketing director for Bud Light. “So we decided to bring the hotel to New York, and we found the largest and grandest ship we could find.”
Well actually the company leased a floating hotel that has never endured a sea trial and certainly never endured a winter North Atlantic crossing. Days after docking it must behave like a hotel after that daunting crossing and that is saying a lot.

A cruise ship is not an ocean liner

Cruise ships are floating amusement parks designed to keep passengers entertained who don't want to actually set foot on Haiti or Nassau. They are huge, bulky, shallow draft, broad a beam and prone to systems failure and contagious viruses. They are not ocean liners. Ocean liners are graceful, beamy ships designed to travel in any sea condition at a high rate of speed. When you add great sea keeping ability to great speed and then add elegance you get the best of the best. This does not define a cruise ship. Today's greatest cruise ship, the Oasis of the Seas, waddled across the North Atlantic back in 2009 and hit a typical fall storm. Since it is not an ocean liner and could not go hide behind a Caribbean island, it turned into the wind and held its place until the storm passed, a surrender to the sea that kept most of the fancy decor in place on its bulkheads. Unable to advance through the rough North Atlantic, it arrived safe but late. Any old ocean liner would have kicked its but, if the mail contract was on the line.

This is what an ocean liner looks like

Budweiser hopes to berth the cruise ship at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum berthed next door at Pier 86. When the gets it repaired, the Norwegian cruise ship, which completed construction at a shipyard in Germany in late January, is expected to be one of the largest and most technologically advanced passenger vessels in the world, boasting 18 decks, 22 bars and lounges and 27 dining menus (in addition to spas, waterslides, fun zones and other typical cruise amenities). While it is docked at Pier 88 for the Super Bowl, workers will deck out the interior of the ship with Bud Light pillows, hand towels, key cards and the like, whilst undertaking an even greater makeover on the exterior.

Super Bowl XLVII will kick off at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Feb. 2, 2014.

Here is the early forecast for offshore New England while the Getaway is in transit:

ANZ082-160215-
GEORGES BANK...FROM THE NORTHEAST CHANNEL TO THE GREAT SOUTH
CHANNEL INCLUDING WATERS EAST OF CAPE COD...TO THE HAGUE LINE-
915 AM EST WED JAN 15 2014

January 08, 2014

Once the expanded canal was critical for US consumer goods imports from Asia now: "Halting work on the project to widen and deepen the canal, originally slated to cost $5.25 billion, would be a setback for companies eager to use the century-old waterway to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the U.S. Gulf coast to Asian markets

(Reuters) - The Panama Canal and a Spanish-led building consortium expanding the major world cargo route moved nearer to a deal to keep work going amid a cost dispute on Tuesday, with each proposing a joint financing package.

Halting work on the project to widen and deepen the canal, originally slated to cost $5.25 billion, would be a setback for companies eager to use the century-old waterway to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the U.S. Gulf coast to Asian markets.

While the two sides are at odds over who should pay for $1.6 billion in cost overruns, which could put the overall project bill at close to $7 billion, both have agreed to put up at least $100 million each to keep the project running.

However, building consortium Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC), led by Spanish construction company Sacyr (SCYR.MC), said in a statement it had asked the canal administrator for a $400 million advance.

Earlier, the Panama Canal Authority proposed a $283 million joint financing package, which was less attractive for the building companies because it requires them to put up fresh cash while the authority would simply advance funds it would have paid anyway.

Under that plan, the canal authority and the consortium would each put up $100 million, while the canal would give the group more time to repay $83 million that was advanced to them.

It is also conditional on the consortium withdrawing a threat to stop work on January 20 and to process its claim for $1.6 billion in cost overruns separately through agreed arbitration panels.

The canal authority had no immediate comment on the consortium's counter-offer, which also calls on the canal authority to extend a moratorium on the repayment of a $784 million cash advance already paid out until arbitration ends.

"The Panama Canal can't have this work stopped," the canal authority's head, Jorge Quijano, told reporters in Panama City earlier on Tuesday. "And we have to do everything necessary to continue with the project."

Work on the expansion, which will create a new lane of traffic along the canal and double the waterway's capacity, began in 2007, and the project is 72 percent complete, according to the Panama Canal Authority's website.

The consortium, which also includes Italy's Salini Impregilo (SALI.MI), Belgium's Jan De Nul and Panama's Constructora Urbana, said last week it had faced the added costs due to unforeseen setbacks in the $3.2 billion project to build a third set of locks for the canal.

It said geological studies carried out by the Panama Canal Authority were flawed. The authority has not yet responded.

IN THE BALANCE

If the parties fail to reach an agreement, the project could potentially be offered up to other companies.

Bechtel, a U.S. engineering company which lost out in the original bidding process, declined to comment when asked if it was ready to step into the project if the opportunity arose.

A source close to the consortium speculated that Bechtel was waiting to step in, but said the GUPC considers it has a very strong bargaining position given contractual clauses.

On Monday, Spain's ambassador to Panama said his country's government will not provide any financing.

Sacyr won the canal contract in 2009 with an offer considerably below the main rival bids and also below the $3.48 billion reference set by the canal authority. U.S. diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks show President Ricardo Martinelli's government was worried about progress before six months had passed.

Sacyr, whose debts at end-September were three times its market capitalization, made 55 percent of revenue outside Spain in the first nine months of 2013. Panama contributed 25 percent of its 1.3 billion euros ($1.78 billion) in international sales, according to its 2013 nine-month earnings statement.

Sacyr shares closed up 4.7 percent on Tuesday, extending a rebound on heavy volume of 17.8 million shares after falling sharply when the row flared in early January.

(Additional reporting by David Adams in Miami, Fiona Ortiz in Madrid and Gabriel Stargardter, Dave Graham and Julia Symmes Cobb in Mexico City and Danilo Masoni in Milan; writing by Simon Gardner; editing by Stephen Powell, David Gregorio and Bernard Orr)